What is Christology?
Answered from the commentary of W. R. Dronsfield, Samuel Ridout, J. N. Darby and 10 others
Christology is the doctrine of the Person of Christ, and that truth is vital: He is truly and distinctly God, really and distinctly Man, yet one Person indivisible. It has three features: His deity, "The Word was God" (John 1:1); His humanity, "The Word became flesh" (John 1:14); and the unity of His Person.
His deity is the basis of everything for our souls, and on it hangs the whole truth of revelation and redemption. In the beginning the Word already existed as a distinct Person with God, and He was properly and absolutely God, in no inferior place. He did not become Son by incarnation; there was never a moment when He was not the Son of the Father, and it was this Son who became flesh. In becoming man He took full and complete manhood, with a human spirit, soul and body. Yet His humanity was holy, so that He was tempted "apart from sin" (Hebrews 4:15), having no sinful nature, and it was impossible for Him to sin. The two natures are united in one Person, and they remain distinct but are never separated. Scripture never divides the Person nor confounds the natures. This union is an unfathomable mystery, revealed not for our comprehension but for faith, love and adoring worship.
From this follows the meaning of His humiliation in Philippians 2:6-11. He emptied Himself not of Godhead, which cannot change, but of its form and status. As God He emptied Himself; as man He humbled Himself to the death of the cross; and God has highly exalted Him. To confound the two natures, or to use one to cancel the other, is to lose the truth about Christ. It also destroys the reality of the atonement, for the One who alone could make propitiation had to be God and man in one Person. For this reason the church held fast against the early errors. Arianism denied His deity, Apollinarianism attacked His humanity, and Nestorianism made Him two Persons. Eutyches, on the other side, confused the natures.
The doctrine also takes in His offices: He is the Anointed One, Priest, King and Prophet. One author, however, warns that forcing every part of His grace into those three offices narrows what Scripture presents. The authors differ only slightly in wording. Some gladly call Him "the God-man", while one dislikes the term because it can suggest a merging of the natures.
Verses: John 1:1, John 1:2, John 1:3, John 1:14, Colossians 1:15, Colossians 1:16, Colossians 1:17, Colossians 1:18, Colossians 1:19, Colossians 1:20, Philippians 2:5, Philippians 2:6, Philippians 2:7, Philippians 2:8, Philippians 2:9, Philippians 2:10, Philippians 2:11, Hebrews 1:1, Hebrews 1:2, Hebrews 1:3, Hebrews 1:4, Colossians 2:9, John 20:28, John 8:58, John 10:30, Matthew 16:15, Matthew 16:16, Matthew 16:17, Hebrews 2:14, Hebrews 2:15, Hebrews 2:16, Hebrews 2:17, Hebrews 2:18, Hebrews 4:15, 1 Timothy 2:5, 1 Timothy 3:16, Romans 1:3, Romans 1:4, Romans 9:5, Titus 2:13, 1 John 4:2, 1 John 4:3, 1 John 5:20, Galatians 4:4, Isaiah 9:6, Luke 1:35, Matthew 1:23, Mark 14:61, Mark 14:62, John 14:9, John 17:5, Hebrews 13:8, Revelation 1:17, Revelation 1:18, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Acts 2:36, Hebrews 5:8, Hebrews 5:9, Luke 2:52, John 11:35, 1 Corinthians 8:6, Revelation 22:13, 2 Peter 1:1
The above is AI generated summary based on the writers below.
What the commentators say
The passages the answer is drawn from, the most direct first, with the words that bear on the question marked.
The truth of the Person of Christ is vital. He is truly and distinctly God-really and distinctly Man-yet One Person indivisible; the Triune God-One God-three Persons-each Person distinct, yet wholly God: Eternal Divine relationships-the 3rd verse of this epistle calls Him the Son of the Father, the only place where this expression occurs: His atoning work; salvation by faith not by works-all these are surely the doctrine of Christ.
It is so with every truth of God. If I look at the person of Christ there are two great sides to it. There is His deity and His humanity. If I confound them, or use one to neutralise the other, I have lost the truth about Christ. It is not true that He is God only, nor that He is man only. Nor is it true that it is a confusion of the Godhead with the humanity of the Lord. There is His person, but most assuredly there is a Divine nature and there is a human.
This is a great mystery, and all the historic fundamental errors concerning His Person have been attempts to explain it in some measure. It is inexplicable. He is a real Man and true God in One Person. The two natures, manhood and Deity, are not joined together to form one nature, but are united in One Person. They ever remain distinct but are never separated. Their union is personal, not consubstantial.
The opposite error to saying that He is two persons is to say that His two natures have combined into one. It was an ancient heresy that the two natures, Manhood and Deity, merged together. For this reason the writer does not like the expression the “God-man”. It implies to him (though not to many orthodox Christians) that He is half man and half God. Such an idea must be resisted. He is wholly Man and wholly God. He possesses all the attributes and properties of real, unfallen, holy Manhood, and at the same time possesses all the infinite attributes and properties of Deity. The unity consists, not in the amalgamation of essence, but in the Oneness of His Person.
He took up humanity into union with deity in His Person; yet His incarnation did not in the least detract from His deity nor His eternal relationship as Son to the Father but only gave to His humanity His infinite perfection. Each of His two natures retained its own proper character without any confusion. His human nature as well as His divine nature possessed each their excellent characteristics and both united to form His glorious Person as incarnate Son. Scripture never divides the Person nor confounds the natures. They are united in His Person by a unique and inscrutable bond. He is the God-man He is God in all that God is and He is Man in all that man is, apart from sin. Such is the Son of God come in flesh — the God-man — that He might manifest the Godhead in the flesh and by His obedience unto death, even the death of the cross, might redeem us unto God.
The blessed Lord in assuming manhood took all that was necessary for manhood, spirit, soul, and body; the spirit of a man, the soul of a man, the body of a man—in other words a human spirit, a human soul, a human body—full complete manhood. And yet, united to Deity there was but one indivisible Person. Such is the teaching of Scripture, such the mystery that our Lord declares none can know but the Father.
We must believe that He is very God, for this is clearly taught in the Word; we must believe that He is very Man, for this is clearly taught in the Word—very God and very Man, yet one blessed Person, Godhead and humanity united indissolubly and indivisibly and forever. Blessed Mystery, before which faith falls with adoring worship.
But look at the other side a moment more. What we are confronted with more in modern days is not so much a question of His being truly and really God; but, beloved friends, we have to grapple with another error and on another side, and that is with regard to His being truly and really man. Now we cannot affirm of our Lord Jesus Christ's divinity and of His Godhead glory in such a manner and in such a way as to detract from the reality of His manhood; as on the other hand you cannot affirm of His manhood and of His ways in this world in such wise as to detract from His glory as God. Therefore, what we find in scripture is this, that though unique in His own blessed character and way down here, apart from man and of an order peculiar to Himself, "the second man," says the scripture, "is the Lord out of heaven" — yet that He was as truly and as really a Man here in this world as He was truly and really and always "God over all, blessed evermore." And we have to hold both; and when we assert the reality and the glory, too, of His manhood, we do not in any wise oppose another part of the glory of Christ to lessen the truth of that. This would be to set one glory of His Person against another. The truth is, we adoringly bow and hold both, we do not separate and divide His blessed Person; we hold and own in our hearts' most reverent and tenderest affections, too, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was both God and Man, and that His divine nature shone forth in Him as truly and really as the perfection of His human nature as man was also seen.
The Son Took up Manhood into Inseparable Union with His Person
It is well to note another point. Some would seek to distinguish in the Lord's actions and words that which is manhood and that which is deity. But this is indeed slippery ground. It leads inevitably into attributing a dual personality to our Lord, the one manhood the other deity kept distinct in separate compartments, so to speak, in His being. But this is purely human reasoning contrary to the way Scripture presents our Lord's Person.
Scripture never divides His Person into two parts, one human and one divine, but reveals Him as having taken up perfect humanity into union with His eternal deity so that they are united in one unique, inscrutable and indissoluble bond in His Person. While Scripture never confounds the two natures it never divides the Person. Even what He does in manhood is still the action of Himself, the eternal Son, who has of His own self, and without giving up His personality as eternal Son, "taking a bondman's form, taking His place in the likeness of men" (Phil. 2:7, J. N. D. Trans.). It is He the eternal Son that is there as Man. It is this fact of His Person as the eternal Son of God, having taken His place as Man, that gives the infinite perfection of His unique Person to all that He does as incarnate Son. It is this indissoluble union of perfect manhood with eternal deity in His unique Person that constantly comes out in all that He does as God (the Son) manifest in flesh.
A.E.B. — We need to press that. Humanity is never deified. Christ is perfect man and true God.
C.C. — There are two natures combined in one Person, yet distinct.
Verses
- John 1:1–31In [the] beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things received being through him, and without him not one [thing] received being which has received being.
- John 1:14And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father), full of grace and truth;
- Colossians 1:15–2015who is image of the invisible God, firstborn of all creation; 16because by him were created all things, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones, or lordships, or principalities, or authorities all things have been created by him and for him. 17And he is before all, and all things subsist together by him. 18And he is the head of the body, the assembly; who is [the] beginning, firstborn from among the dead, that he might have the first place in all things 19for in him all the fulness [of the Godhead] was pleased to dwell, 20and by him to reconcile all things to itself, having made peace by the blood of his cross — by him, whether the things on the earth or the things in the heavens.